Scottish Enterprise is hoping to ease the funding void created by the lack of credit from the banking sector.

The agency is already planning to expand the products and services available from the Scottish Investment Bank (SIB) which was unveiled this week.

Se announced the measure yesterday in its latest business plan which sets out how it will spend its multi-million pound annual budget up until 2013.

Crawford Gillies, chairman of SE, said the £50million investment fund at the SIB is just the "first phase" of the scheme.

And Gillies was confident lending activities would begin before the end of this year. He said: "In general, we are working on the assumption the economic recovery will be fragile for some time to come and there is no immediate expectation the credit markets will rebound back to where they were say three years ago.

"This fund has been set up in response to the lack of credit available in the market, which in turn has created some weaknesses in the market for high-growth businesses.

"By helping to address the gap in the market we think we can help businesses and, in turn, help the Scottish economy.

"In parallel with getting that fund open for business by the end of the year, the plan is we continue to look for other avenues of financing to expand and enhance not just that fund, but hopefully open up other funds too.

"We are looking to banks, institutional investors, pension funds and a variety of sources for new capital to expand this initiative."

In its business plan, the enterprise body has set out ambitious plans to stimulate an additional £65m to £75m of investment in research and development. It aims to attract more than double the current contribution from the private sector in large infrastructure projects.

Those spending plans will be matched with a commitment to achieve a ratio of at least two to one of private sector in SE's co-investment in Scottish companies.

The bulk of these initiatives will be led by the SIB, which will take responsibility for the Scottish Seed Fund, Scottish Venture Fund and Scottish Co-investment Fund.

SE's spending plans outline a commitment to invest more than £226m to help support Scottish business including £98m of direct business support and £29m aimed at targeting specialist projects within key sectors such as life sciences, renewable energy and financial services.

A further £98m will be spent developing the Scottish business environment to help increase the availability of risk capital for Scottish companies and to improve Scotland's infrastructure to support key sectors. The three-year spending plan aims to support 500 to 650 manufacturing companies by way of the highly successful Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service and Lean Management programmes.

Around 18 high growth start-up companies have also been identified in Scotland with the potential to grow into £5m businesses in the next three years. SE hopes to attract "at least" 2,400 high-value jobs through inward investment in an effort to boost employment in Scotland's key sectors and offer support for up to 800 companies to help them access international markets.

Gillies added:"We spend around £300m a year at Scottish Enterprise, but to maximise the impact we have in the Scottish economy we need to leverage private sector capital and collaborate with other public sector agencies to make sure we are completely aligned with economic growth."